ge of biological matters; and this excitation of interest in
quarters where otherwise it would have been entirely wanting, is an
additional motive for gratitude on the part of naturalists to the authors
of the new theory. At the same time it must be admitted that a similar
"simplicity"--the apparently easy explanation of complex phenomena--also
constitutes the charm of such matters as hydropathy and phrenology, in the
eyes of the unlearned or half-educated public. It is indeed _the_ charm of
all those seeming "short cuts" to knowledge, by which the labour of
mastering scientific details is spared to those who yet believe that {12}
without such labour they can attain all the most valuable results of
scientific research. It is not, of course, for a moment meant to imply that
its "simplicity" tells at all against "Natural Selection," but only that
the actual or supposed possession of that quality is a strong reason for
the wide and somewhat hasty acceptance of the theory, whether it be true or
not.

In the second place, it was inevitable that a theory appearing to have very
grave relations with questions of the last importance and interest to man,
that is, with questions of religious belief, should call up an army of
assailants and defenders. Nor have the supporters of the theory much
reason, in many cases, to blame the more or less unskilful and hasty
attacks of adversaries, seeing that those attacks have been in great part
due to the unskilful and perverse advocacy of the cause on the part of some
of its adherents. If the _odium theologicum_ has inspired some of its
opponents, it is undeniable that the _odium antitheologicum_ has possessed
not a few of its supporters. It is true (and in appreciating some of Mr.
Darwin's expressions it should never be forgotten) that the theory has been
both at its first promulgation and since vehemently attacked and denounced
as unchristian, nay, as necessarily atheistic; but it is not less true that
it has been made use of as a weapon of offence by irreligious writers, and
has been again and again, especially in continental Europe, thrown, as it
were, in the face of believers, with sneers and contumely. When we
recollect the warmth with which what he thought was Darwinism was advocated
by such a writer as Professor Vogt, one cause of his zeal was not far to
seek--a zeal, by the way, certainly not "according to knowledge;" for few
conceptions could have been more conflicting with true Da